Word: betjeman
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...politics. "Architecture or revolution!" he wrote, at the turbulent beginning of the '20s. Consequently men like Mies, Gropius and Le Corbusier were prone to see themselves not only as prophets but as lawgivers, and their tracts were filled with a lofty utopianism. The dream was neatly parodied by John Betjeman...
What Liverpudlians got for their generosity is no mere ostentatious pile of stone. The cathedral's clean, neo-Gothic lines and interior have already been widely praised; Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman, a connoisseur of architecture, pronounced it "one of great buildings of the world." Yet its architect, a Roman Catholic named Giles Scott, was a 22-year-old unknown when he chosen from among 102 competitors in 1903. Later Scott go on to design London's Waterloo Bridge and the massive Battersea power station, and to rebuild the bomb-gutted House of Commons after World...
Amis includes a respectable swatch of Jonathan Swift speculating on his coming demise and of T.S. Eliot musing on cats ("Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,/ There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity"). John Betjeman, England's reigning poet laureate, displays a light touch at vers de société; Robert Graves is captured in several nonmythic moods. A couple of songs by Nöel Coward read less jauntily than they sing. Auden the anthologist did not let Auden the splendid comic poet into his book. Amis generously corrects this blunder...
...Bowra was already a celebrated talent-spotter and host; among those who were just finishing their undergraduate careers in the mid-1920s, and who came and went within his circle, were Rex Warner, Cecil Day Lewis, Brian Howard, Cyril Connolly, Kenneth Clark, Henry Yorke (Henry Green), John Betjeman, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, John Sparrow, Isaiah Berlin, AJ. Ayer . . . There were giants in the earth in those days, but if in those days they were giants it was still within the context of their own circle; just a very talented group of young...
England's 17th Poet Laureate was not without sympathizers. Said Poet Geoffrey Grigson: "Betjeman is not really to blame. The problem is having to get emotional about the monarchy at all." History seems to support Grigson's point. Most Laureates have found the muse reluctant to lower herself for mere royalty. At the birth of Prince Andrew in 1960, C. Day Lewis, Betjeman's predecessor, had to make do with "You princely babe, you pretty dear/ For you we bring/ The birthday honors of the quickening year." He could have done worse. When the future Edward...